


His Parents' Gods

by Jake_the_space_cat



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Aftermath of the Calamity, Aleport (Final Fantasy XIV), Childhood, Childhood Memories, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Learning Disabilities, Limsa Lominsa (Final Fantasy XIV), Llymlaen, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), Muteness, Pre-ARR, Reading Disabilities, Religion, Rhalgr, Survivor Guilt, The Twelve - Freeform, faith - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jake_the_space_cat/pseuds/Jake_the_space_cat
Summary: Seven-year-old Camille Delane, future god-slayer, learns early how prayer spoken in fear or anger can have unintended consequences. You don't have to summon a primal or even believe the gods ever heard you for faith to have teeth.
Kudos: 2





	His Parents' Gods

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was 'your OC's biggest childhood shame.'
> 
> My WoL's Camille Delane, a Hyur Highlander and infant Ala Mhigan refugee from Theodoric's rule; his parents died fleeing the country and he was adopted and raised by an infertile Limsa Lominsan couple with a large extended family. Camille's mute due to a war injury from the Calamity, speaks in sign, and has a reading learning disability that's left him intimidated by books/scholarship. 
> 
> You can see caps and art and learn more about Camille over on [refsheet.net](https://refsheet.net/Waldweg/camilledelane). He also has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/74mL2qfFnzHrcqpBbtXj3M?si=YNrjr-EyQhqZTrGHbO9STQ), because I'm an ex-RPer, and we're like that.

It had been a very very very very long day.

Camille dragged along behind his parents. Maybe if he went slow enough, they would notice how bored and tired he was and how mean they were being. Or maybe they would just stop at another stall along the inner walls of Aleport and give him time to catch up and not even _notice_ they'd almost left him behind. Again.

They were the worst parents.

He didn't even know why they'd brought him along. Aleport was boring. He'd wanted to stay home and play with his cousins—Uther had just found a new hiding spot down by the docks and there was an abandoned trunk in it and he said it was probably a treasure chest and they had to figure out how to unlock it right away. But Mom had said she and Dad needed some things from shops in Aleport for work, and that they'd have lunch out and that it had been a long time since they'd visited the statue of Llymlaen together, anyway.

Lunch had been okay, but afterward they'd both refused to buy him _Pirate Island_ from the bookstall. He could have any other book, but not another copy of _Pirate Island_. He already had three at home. He'd tried to tell Mom he didn't want any other book, but Dad said he needed to try reading other books sometimes. Mom had read _Pirate Island_ to him so many times when he was little, he probably knew it by heart, Dad said.

He _did._ Which was the _point._ He knew all the words, and that was the only way you could read a book. You had to know the words first. His parents didn't seem to understand that. Neither did any of the teachers at the little school back in Limsa Lominsa.

Adults didn't understand anything.

His parents had just reached the statue of Llymlaen ahead of him, and he found himself hurrying to catch up with them despite himself. He didn't want to get lost. Well, not that _he_ would get lost, but his parents might. Parents could be hard to find, once they got out of sight.

“Tired feet?” Mom asked, reaching out to take his hand as he caught up.

“I'm _bored.”_

“Ask the goddess for the patience to endure just a little longer.” Dad thought he couldn't see him wink at Mom, but he could. They were making fun of him.

Camille huffed, but he bowed his head with his parents, ready to honor the goddess.

But then he did something terrible.

He prayed to his other parents' god instead.

 _Rhalgr,_ he said in his head. _Please punish my parents for laughing at me. They're not even my real parents. My_ real _parents wouldn't make fun of me. My real parents would buy me_ Pirate Island. _My real parents wouldn't be so_ boring.

Dad ruffled his hair while he was still praying. Camille huffed again and pulled away. “Stop it.”

“Aw.” Dad smiled, but he also looked a little hurt. “Need a little more time?” Camille shook his head, and Dad raised his head to look up at the statue. Mom joined him. “Llymlaen, thank you for guiding our family to each other, and keep us safe as we navigate the many hazards and joys of life. May we always find safe harbor in you and each other.”

Dad and Mom both gave him a little hug with one arm each, one on either side of him. “I saw flavored ices over there, I think. Let's go look.” Mom started to lead them through the crowd to the sweets vendor.

*****

The whole way home, after strawberry-flavored ice and a chance to pet a pack chocobo and some time for his feet to rest, Camille prayed to Llymlaen and to Rhalgr. He wasn't sure which one would help him take his prayer back. He wasn't sure you _could_ take a prayer back. He wanted to ask Mom and Dad, but he couldn't. He couldn't tell his parents he'd asked Rhalgr to punish them. Or that he'd told Rhalgr they weren't his real parents. That would be _awful._ He loved his parents. He didn't want them to get hurt.

*****

Back at home, the first thing he did was dig his Rhalgr medallion out from the back of a dresser drawer. Usually he ignored it, even though his parents said it had belonged to the people he'd been found with when he was a baby, who'd probably been his birth parents, and that he should take care of it.

But today he wanted to get rid of it.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't break it, but he did finally manage to bend it a little. Maybe that would be enough to make Rhalgr go away.

He crammed the bent medallion back in its box and shoved it under the farthest corner of his bed, way back in the dust and some old socks and a stuffed toy or two he'd forgotten were under there. There. That was the best he could do. He would have to pray to Llymlaen every night now to make sure his parents were _really_ safe. And he would never pray to Rhalgr again.

* * *

Years later, in the days and weeks after the Calamity, Camille went back to his childhood room, still mostly intact among the gutted ruins of Limsa Lominsa. There was still a bed there—it had been used for guests after he'd moved out—and still dust underneath it.

And the bent medallion in its little box, still tucked away in one corner.

He took it out, and sat on the floor. Weak sunlight pushed through the constant haze of ash and dust in the air to fall through a hole in the roof. He held the medallion up to it; the tarnished surface barely glinted.

 _Had_ Rhalgr been listening? He was twenty-five now, too old to believe that gods would destroy lives over a thoughtless child's prayer, but... They were both dead. Both gone in the Calamity. 

It wasn't his fault. He knew that.

But he still took the medallion with him, and found a metalsmith to twist it back into shape, and carried it with him as he went forward into the new days, without his parents and without his voice and without a family and a body untouched—and unpunished—by war.


End file.
